Bernard jury late Friday found David Merwin, 34, of the 1000 block of Center Street, guilty of aggravated rape of juvenile, molestation of a juvenile and indecent behavior with a juvenile, Nicosia said. The district attorney's office announced the ruling Tuesday.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said Tuesday that he wants legislation on his desk by the end of the week to clarify that the state's new religious-freedom law does not allow discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Meanwhile in Arkansas,

lawmakers defied criticism and followed Indiana's lead to pass a similar law. It now goes to Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who has said he will sign it into law.

Pence defended the Indiana measure as a vehicle to protect religious liberty but said he has been meeting with lawmakers "around

About a year ago I was at a dollar store on South Claiborne as the manager of the store was interviewing a young woman for a position he had open. Specifically, he was asking her to explain how she had

come to lose her last job.

Through her tears she explained that there had been an emergency involving one of her children. Nobody else in her family could see about the child so she had to leave work. Her boss told her not to come back.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York man who headed a group billing itself as a non-profit dedicated to preventing child abduction and trafficking was arrested on Tuesday on charges of defrauding the parents of children nabbed by international kidnapping rings, authorities said.

Peter Senese, 49, founding director of the I Care Foundation, was arrested by the FBI in Brooklyn and has been charged with wire fraud.

A criminal complaint filed in federal court in

Manhattan said Senese told parents whose children were victims of international abductions that he could locate them and return them to the United States. He promoted his group through the websites www.stopchildabduction.org and www.petersenese.com and falsely claimed that his organization had former members of the U.S. Army's elite Delta Force at its disposal.

Senese solicited money to cover alleged operational expenses from parents who reached out to him for help recovering their children, according to

University of Louisiana at Lafayette administrator Paula Carson has been named provost and vice president of academic affairs at Missouri Southern State University.

Carson, who serves as interim chief executive officer of the LITE Center, will move into her new position at the Missouri university this summer and oversee academic programming and faculty. She replaces Pat Lipira, who is retiring after serving as vice president for academic affairs since 2012.

“I

am very excited Dr. Carson accepted our offer and that after such an extensive and effective career in higher education, she has agreed to bring her expertise to Missouri Southern,” Alan Marble, president of Missouri Southern State University, said in a news release.

Carson joined UL-Lafayette in 1991 and since 2007 served as the university’s assistant vice president for institutional planning and effectiveness. Last year, she stepped into the role of interim CEO of the

DALLAS (Reuters) - Dallas police said they arrested a woman on Tuesday on accusations of providing illegal butt injections in a salon, which may have resulted in one woman's death.

Jimmy Joe Clarke, 32, who goes by Alicia, was charged with practicing medicine without a license. No attorney was listed in jail records and her bond was set at $25,000.

Her business partner Denise Ross, 43, also known as "Wee Wee," turned herself in to

authorities last week for similar charges and is out on bond.

Investigators said Clarke and Ross charged customers around $300 to $500 for hydrogel injections, a substance not approved by the Federal Drug Administration, to increase the size of their buttocks.

According to the warrant affidavit, one client screamed in agony as several syringes were injected into her buttocks during the cosmetic procedure. The suspects told her to quiet down and sealed the injection

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - The Florida legislature is moving to legalize unwed cohabitation, repealing an 1868 law that makes "lewd and lascivious behavior" among consenting adults a misdemeanor punishable by 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.

"The times have changed," Senator Eleanor Sobel, a South Florida Democrat, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

"Currently, over a half-million couples in Florida are breaking this law. The government should not intrude into the private lives

of consenting adults."

They are not getting caught much, Sobel said, but some grandparents are being denied visitation rights because they live with an unmarried partner, and that cohabitation status could show up in background checks as a law violation.

"Only three states are left with this outdated statute — Florida, Michigan and Mississippi," she said.

The committee voted unanimously for her repeal bill, which earlier cleared the Criminal Justice Committee. It is set for